Tag Archives: Hungarian GP

Lewis Hamilton continued to lead proceedings in second practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The early parts of the session were spent on the soft (prime) tyre, before drivers moved onto the super-soft compound. It has been estimated that the option tyre is up to one second faster than the prime.

Hamilton’s time of 1:21.018 was nearly a quarter of a second faster than Alonso, who managed 40 laps in FP2.

Jenson Button was consistently on the pace, finishing 3rd. The Red Bulls of Webber and Vettel were half a second off the pace in 4th and 5th. Felipe Massa led the Mercedes and Force India cars to finish the top 10.

Jarno Trulli found huge benefits from his new steering system, lapping only a tenth off Sebastien Buemi. Daniel Ricciardo was 0.5 seconds quicker than Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Lewis Hamilton topped the first practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The highlight of the session was Mark Webber crashing out, ending his session prematurely. He lost control of his Red Bull at Turn 9, and hit the barrier, taking the front end off the car.

The session began as damp and lacking grip, but dried out throughout the day. This led to several lock-ups and drivers running wide in the session.

Hamilton’s time of 1:23.350 was enough to take the top spot. He could have gone faster at the end, but was held up by Jaime Alguersuari. Sebastian Vettel was 2 tenths behind in 2nd. Fernando Alonso suffered a small fire on the car during the day, but still participated in the session to go 3rd.

Sergio Perez and Vitaly Petrov made it into the top 10. Bruno Senna drove Nick Heidfeld’s car for the session, and was 0.8 seconds slower than Petrov.

Sebastien Buemi has been ordered to take a 5-place grid penalty for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The stewards decided that he was at fault for causing a collision between the Toro Rosso and Nick Heidfeld early on in the German GP.

Approaching the Veedol chicane, Heidfeld was squeezed onto the grass by Buemi, then the Renault was launched into the gravel trap and out of the race. Buemi continued, but pitted for repairs to his rear right tyre.

Although the television images suggested Buemi squeezed Nick off the track, Sebastien claims “Heidfeld drove into me”.

This follows Buemi being disqualified from qualfying, after a fuel irregularity with his car.

In related news, the FIA has stated it will not take any action against Nick Heidfeld, who was issued a drive-through penalty (for colliding with Paul di Resta) before he crashed out.

The Hungarian Grand Prix was Red Bull’s 100th Formula 1 start, and they celebrated it well with a pole position, race win, and taking the lead in both championships. Here are some more stats and facts from the Hungarian Grand Prix:

This was the 6th time this year that Red Bull have had a front row lockout in qualifying, but they have only turned one of these lockouts into a 1-2 finish, at Malaysia.

With Vitaly Petrov out-qualifying Robert Kubica, no driver has out-qualified their team-mate in every race now.

This was Sebastian Vettel’s 4th pole position in a row, and the 7th this season. He now has 12 overall, as many as Gerhard Berger and David Coulthard.

This was Mark Webber’s 6th career victory, putting him level with many drivers such as Ralf Schumacher, Ricardo Patrese, Gilles Villeneuve, and Jochen Rindt. He has only 1 less than Sebastian Vettel.

The Hungaroring was never built properly, nowhere near the F1 standards you would see today. The right-left right sequence at the end of the track, for instance, was only put in after the designers (halfway through construction) noticed a natural spring in the way. You would have thought that a track like this would have been thrown off the track years ago. Strangely enough it hasn’t, and despite its overtaking difficulties, the Hungarian Grand Prix was packed with action to keep us talking for the next 4 weeks.

The most important aspect of the race was Sebastian Vettel’s extreme pace, in my opinion. Only last week, the Ferraris and Red Bulls were evenly matched on pace. Now that this track suited them much more, the RB6 is a second a lap faster than the F10, and any other car on the grid. And yet, Vettel failed to transform his pace into a win yet again. Out of 7 pole positions, he has only won one of those races, and that is simply unacceptable for a championship contender.

This again left team-mate Webber to pick up the lead, after many fantastic laps in the Grand Prix to open up a 20-second gap to Alonso. This simply demonstrates how powerful the Red Bull car actually is when it suits the circuit, and not just one driver’s speed.

Then we got to the pit stops. Put simply, the safety car period is becoming more dangerous than safe. The pit lane was crammed with cars on Lap 16, and a crash was inevitable. The fault for the first incident lies at the feet of the Renault lollipop man, who didn’t realise that Sutil, who was charging down the pit lane, was actually going to box right ahead of the Renault. Cue an embarrassing accident, taking Sutil out on the spot.

While Kubica was able to continue, he received a 10-second stop and go penalty, which in my view was a bit pointless. I mean, he was already a lap down, and this was only going to entice them to retire the car early. A fine or constructors’ points penalty would have been fairer, since it was the team who were at fault.

The second incident was much more serious. Nico Rosberg was released while the back right wheel wasn’t secured, and it detached and bounced down the pit lane. It nearly hit the Sauber crew, who were just about to work on Kamui Kobayashi’s car, so they couldn’t stop it. Eventually, a Williams mechanic, Nigel Hope, was hit by the tyre, and has suffered a broken rib and bruising, although he was able to take part in the later pit stops after a quick check-up. I heard that apparently “Big Nige” actually jumped in the way of the tyre to catch it, to stop it hitting anyone else. Brave lad 🙂

Since Nico retired, the stewards were forced to hand Mercedes a $50,000 fine instead of a time or grid penalty. Before the safety car even pitted, the stewards had another incident to investigate, as Sebastian Vettel was too slow on the restart, and held the other drivers up way too much. The rules say that you must be within 10 car lengths of the car ahead, and Sebastian was 22 car lengths away, so unfortunately he has nobody to blame but himself.

The drive-through penalty relating to that incident left Alonso 2nd, and would later hold up Vettel at the end. It was a very good performance from Fernando, considering that the Red Bull behind was much faster. Also, for all the talk about Ferrari favouring Alonso, where was Massa? He was 4th, and never troubled anyone in the race. If he truly wants to compete in the title battle, he needs to step up and actually finish ahead of Alonso, as he hasn’t done so since Turkey.

After Webber’s pit stop sorted out the top 3, focus soon switched to the battle between Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher for 10th. Here’s the problem. Barrichello was Schumacher’s team-mate for 5 years,constantly opening the door for him and allowing him through, or not challenging him for the win. How does Michael repay him? By shoving him into a concrete wall of course. A 10-place grid penalty wasn’t harsh enough, but to be honest, when there isn’t a collision, the stewards must be limited to the penalties they can hand out. But will Michael learn from his penalty? Nope, not really. The only way to make him learn into shove him into a concrete wall at 300km/h himself, but no intelligent driver would actually think of doing that.

But back to the race. Both Vitaly Petrov and Nico Hulkenberg scored their best career performances to date, getting 5th and 6th respectively. This is absolutely fantastic for them, especially Petrov, as he needs to get consistent points finishes. He has the same amount of points as Kamui Kobayashi now, and I’m struggling to pick which one has been better this year. Kobayashi finished 9th today after starting 23rd on the grid, and made an excellent move on Schumacher at the restart, which unfortunately we didn’t see. Hulkenberg was 6th, and used the harder tyre first to make his way up the field while everyone else pitted at the safety car. While it was a good performance, it is worth pointing out that the strategy wouldn’t have worked if the safety car hadn’t been deployed.

The championship battle is also heating up nicely, as Mark Webber takes the lead in the standings. It is worth pointing out that, while a driver has been in the lead of the championship, none of them have won a race this year. Lewis Hamilton is only 4 points behind, after suffering a transmission problem, while Sebastian Vettel is another 6 points behind. Jenson Button was very poor all weekend in Hungary, and deserves to fall to 4th.

Finally, Sakon Yamamoto was last, again. His fastest lap was an entire 1.2 seconds slower than Bruno Senna’s. Even at the end of the race, when he had a decent set of tyres on and low fuel, his fastest lap was a whole second slower than Adrian Sutil’s, whose fastest lap of the day was set with a 50-lap fuel load on board (he retired on Lap 16).

At the end of the day, the Hungarian Grand Prix was a very interesting one, and much better than the races we have had here in the previous years. We now have a 4-week wait until Belgium, so I have been writing up new articles to keep us interested until then. There should be 1 or 2 new Forgotten Heroes posts, a ranked review of all the drivers so far, a look at the teams applying for F1 in 2011, and regular articles across the way.

I have stated countless times that Michael Schumacher’s “comeback” has consisted of nothing but cheap defensive shots, and driving his opponents into the wall/gravel/grandstand. However, today’s performance takes the cake, as he shoves, into a concrete wall at 300km/h, a former team-mate which held the door open for him for 5 years.

Two different views from the Schumacher move that has sparked huge controversy already

The stewards have since served Schumacher a 10-place grid penalty for the next race in Belgium, butthis is nowhere near enough. Barrichello was inches away from a crash that could have easily been fatal, and it would have been completely Michael’s fault. He tried to justify his move by saying afterwards: “I think I left him too much room because he passed.” This single-handedly explains why I think that he should just walk away today from F1, as he has become nothing more than a pathetically arrogant, and dangerous, disgrace to the sport.

There has always been a group of supporters that have hated Schumacher for his illicit moves, such as taking out Damon Hill in Adelade to win the title in 1994, the failed championship-stealing move on Villeneuve in 1997, shoving Frentzen into the gravel in Canada 1998… do I even need to go on?

Even worse, he seems to practically endorse his moves. He stated afterwards that: “I think I left him too much room because he passed.” Clearly he has forgotten one of the most important rules in motorsport, and it’s called sportsmanship. The worst thing is, a similar accident happened today in Superleague Formula, where Chris van der Drift’s car split in half after a huge crash (although it is designed to do so):

As you heard in that video, it was a communications error that caused that crash, but it is a clear sign of what could have happened today. The main difference in this situaion was that there was no gap between the car and the wall, which meant that, in the event of a crash, Barrichello’s car would have speared sideways into Schumacher’s car (not 100% a bad thing) and ending in the cars smashing into the wall at Turn 1, with no guarantee that they would be the right way up.

Our last huge crash was only in Valencia, and it is far too soon to see how close the drivers can cheat injury again. In my view, rather than a penalty, Schumacher should just admit he has contributed absolutely nothing useful to Formula 1 this year, and is putting all of his fellow drivers at risk, and hang up his helmet for good. My favourite underdog Nick Heidfeld will be waiting to take his seat.

Mark Webber took the win in today’s Hungarian Grand Prix, despite a change in strategy after a safety car period. Sebastian Vettel was leading up to Lap 15 or so, but a drive-through penalty ruined his race, and left him 3rd. Fernando Alonso took this opportunity to get into 2nd place, in between the two Red Bulls.

At the start, Vettel finally held his lead up to the first corner. Alonso got past Webber, who was on the dirty side of the track, and pressurised Sebastian, but the German held him off. Once the toughest part was over for Vettel, he put his foot down, and extended his lead at the front by 1 second every single lap.

Vettel manages to hold his lead at the start, while Alonso gets ahead of Webber

Vitaly Petrov made a fantastic start, getting past Lewis Hamilton to get into 5th place. By Lap 2 however, the McLaren’s tyres were back up to temperature, and easily out-braked the Renault into Turn 2. Jenson Button, on the other hand, dropped down the field to 15th, after he got caught out by the heavy pack into Turn 1.

Up front, Vettel was in a class of his own, 10 seconds ahead of Alonso after 12 laps. This looked like a done deal. But, on Lap 15, Vitantonio Liuzzi lost a piece of his front wing, and it landed near the racing line on Turn 11, a blind-entry high-speed corner, and the safety car had to be deployed. As only a handful of drivers had pitted before this point (Button notably being one of them), the pit lane was going to be very busy. And that’s where things went out of hand.

First off, when Robert Kubica was being released from his box, he clashed with Adrian Sutil, who was entering the box just ahead of the Renault garage. The fault lay at the feet of the Renault lollipop man, but Kubica was able to keep going, albeit a lap down, after having his engine restarted. Sutil was out on the spot, and the stewards were soon investigating the incident.

The mechanics try to clear up the mess after the crash between Sutil and Kubica

Nico Rosberg, meanwhile, was released from his box while the mechanics were still working on the back left wheel. The tyre detached, flew off and bounced straight through a busy pit lane, narrowly dodging the Sauber pit crew, then knocking down and injuring a Williams mechanic. It was a miracle that he only suffered bruising, and later on took part in Nico Hulkenberg’s pit stop. Meanwhile, Nico stopped at the end of the pit lane to retire.

Every driver on the soft tyres except one went in to pit, while Barrichello and Hulkenberg stayed out, as they were on the hard tyres. The only driver on the softs who failed to stop was Mark Webber, whose team never told him to pit, surely angering him, as while he was in the lead now, he had no gap to the cars behind, and still had to stop.

Nico Rosberg's wheel detaches i the pit lane, and nearly takes out the Sauber pit crew, then knocks down a Williams mechanic

At the restart, Mark put his foot down to build a gap, while Vettel in 2nd was caught napping, and held up the rest of the field by too much, and was too far behind his team-mate’s car at the restart. The rules say that you must be within 10 car lengths of the car in front, to stop team-mates bunching the field up. The stewards now had a lot to deal with, as they also had to investigate this incident. Meanwhile, Kubica had been served a 10-second stop and go penalty, and after falling 2 laps down, gave up 10 laps later.

It was now Webber’s mission to get as far away from everyone else as possible. By Lap 24, he was 7 seconds ahead of Vettel, although they were than matched in pace after that. At the moment, he was only aiming to rejoin behind Vettel after he pitted, as Alonso was falling away from Sebastian. But, on Lap 29, the state of the race took another twist, when it was announced that Vettel had been served a drive-through penalty for exceeding the 10-length limit at the safety car restart.

While all of this was going on, Lewis Hamilton was making a very quiet retirement from the Grand Prix, as a transmission failure took him out of 5th place. While he had little impact on the race, his championship battle would suffer significantly as a reault of this retirement.

Once Sebastian served his penalty, he emerged well behind Alonso, but still ahead of a silent Massa in 4th. The focus now switched to Webber, who had to get a 20-second gap to Alonso by the time he pitted. On Lap 31, he was 11 seconds ahead, and the good news was that his super-soft tyres could hold up for another 10 or so laps.

Over the next few laps, we saw successive stunning laps from the Red Bull, as he charged away from the helpless Ferrari. A blistering set of laps ensured that he was an entire second a lap faster, just like all of the other sessions this weekend. By Lap 40, Webber had his 20 second gap, and stopped 3 laps later. The Red Bull mechanics did their job perfectly, and it was high-fives all around, and even Christian Horner applauded the team’s performance.

Once Webber exited in the lead, the focus was back on Vettel to catch and pass Alonso for 2nd place. While he was much faster, he was unable to make the pass in the end, and was held back in 3rd until the end. Further back, there was an excellent battle for 10th place, as Michael Schumacher was under pressure by former team-mate Rubens Barrichello. But, as he tends to do this year, Schumacher made a move that nearly ended in disaster.

Schumacher pushes Barrichello within inches of a huge collision

He pushed Barrichello to within centimetres of a concrete wall at over 300km/h. Rubens then ran onto the grass to stay alive, and still managed to get past Michael, despite possibly the stupidest and most dangerous defensive move I’ve ever seen. The stewards have since given Schumacher a 10-place grid penalty in Spa, which is nowhere near enough. A separate blog post will be up about this tonight.

So, Mark Webber crossed the line first, 17 seconds still ahead of Alonso, who managed to hold off Vettel until the end. While the fastest man didn’t win, Webber still drove magnificently to fully deserve the win, and the lead in the drivers’ championship. Jenson Button was completely invisible all race, but still took advantage of the safety car to move up to 8th place, although he was still overtaken by both Red Bulls in the standings.

A shout-out must also be given to Vitaly Petrov and Nico Hulkenberg, who finished 5th and 6th respectively, their best finishes in F1. Hulkenberg made his way up the grid thanks to starting on the harder tyre, while Petrov was just plain fast for the entire race. Kamui Kobayashi was impressive yet again in 9th place, after starting 23rd on the grid.

Red Bull gives you.... an unfair aerodynamic levitation advantage?

While there were only a handful of overtaking moves, the Hungarian Grand Prix was anything but boring, with plenty of events to keep us talking over the 4-week break. More articles about the race will be up today and tomorrow.

Kamui Kobayashi has suffered another setback to his Hungarian Grand Prix drive, with the news that he has received a 5-place grid penalty for ignoring a red light at the end of the pit lane. The red light was for the FIA scrutineering garage, but Kamui went straight on into the Sauber garage.

This means that the Japanese driver will drop from 18th to 23rd on the grid, in between the two Hispania drivers. This means that the back row will be both Japanese drivers, with Sakon Yamamoto in 24th place (again).

Meanwhile, Pedro de la Rosa, fellow Sauber driver, will start from 9th on the grid, with a chance at his first points of the year.

Sebastian Vettel took pole position, well ahead of his team-mate Mark Webber, while Fernando Alonso was 3rd. Lewis Hamilton was 5th, while Jenson Button was 11th. Here is the full report:

Q1

With the short nature of the track, several drivers were being warned of traffic impeding them on their runs, which may be why so many drivers went out early on. The fastest lap was set by Vitaly Petrov two times in a row within 5 minutes, before being beaten by team-mate Kubica.

After this, the Red Bulls went out, and instantly broke into the 1.21 barrier, with Sebastian Vettel setting a 1.21.360. Mark Webber went 2 tenths faster, while Michael Schumacher is very close to the dropout zone in 15th, while Jaime Alguersuari was 18th.

Within a few minutes, Jenson Button, Alguersuari and Michael Schumacher all fall below 17th, before setting another time to get out, leaving Kamui Kobayahshi out of Q1. The Virgin of Timo Glock was the fastest of the new teams today.

Drivers knocked out in Q1:

18) Kamui Kobayashi

19) Timo Glock

20) Heikki Kovalainen

21) Jarno Trulli

22) Lucas di Grassi

23) Bruno Senna

24) Sakon Yamamoto

Q2

Within a few minutes, the Red Bulls blasted their way into 1st and 2nd, leaving the others to fight it out. Most others were on the harder tyre, but Jenson Button switched to the soft tyre to try and get through to Q2. He only got to 9th after 2 attempts though.

Felipe Massa, in 7th, went out on a run on the super-softs to try and ensure he got through, a strategy used by Jaime Alguersuari. Alguersuari, however, only got 16th, and was knocked back to 17th by Sebastien Buemi. Nico Hulkenberg was 11th, and trying to improve, but made a mistake at Turn 11 and ruined his chance.

Mark Webber beat Vettel (who decided not to go out again) with a 1.19.5. Meanwhile, the main battle was to stay in the top 10, as Jenson Button was knocked into 11th by Hulkenberg and De la Rosa. He went out again, but failed to improve, leaving him out of Q2. Alongside him were both Force Indias and Toro Rossos, Barrichello and Michael Schumacher.

Drivers knocked out in Q2:

11 Jenson Button

12) Rubens Barrichello

13) Adrian Sutil

14) Michael Schumacher

15) Sebastien Buemi

16) Vitantonio Liuzzi

17) Jaime Alguersuari

Q3

Fernando Alonso was first out, and set a a.19.9, the fastest lap for a Ferrari this weekend. He was followed by Massa and Hulkenberg, while Nico Rosberg went 3rd. Lewis Hamilton was half a second slower than Alonso, while Webber’s tyres were slightly cold, despite this he set a 1.19.184.

Then, Sebastian Vettel smashed that time with a 1.18.7, surely the fastest lap of the weekend. That time was 1.2 seconds faster than Alonso in 3rd. While everyone pitted before their final runs, Pedro de la Rosa went 7th, but Vitaly Petrov made a mistake on his first run, but he still went 8th.

Mark Webber failed on his final run, leaving Vettel free to take pole. Alonso was 3rd ahead of Massa, while Hamilton was invisible in 5th. Nico Rosberg was 6th, while Vitaly Petrov beat Robert Kubica for the first ever time. Pedro de la Rosa was 9th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg.